Biography
Leon Blum was a Bronx laundry worker and secretary of the Laundry Workers Industrial Union, affiliated with the Trade Union Unity League. He helped replace a racketeer-controlled organization with a union run by its members. In 1932, he spent seven weeks in jail on an assault charge that was dropped. During the Pretty Laundry strike in spring 1933, the New York State Parole Commission revoked parole from an earlier conviction and returned him to state prison. He was held at Great Meadow Prison in Comstock, New York, and was released on conditional parole in May 1934. After his release, he returned to New York and the union movement.
The Daily Worker of May 13, 1933, page 3, reports that Blum received a one-year penitentiary term the previous day, May 12, after a State Parole Commission hearing. It distinguishes that decision from his return to prison several weeks earlier following revocation of parole in a prior case. The paper attributes the revocation to strikebreaker affidavits and reports that parole officials had warned him to stop his Laundry Workers Industrial Union activity. The union called for a hearing, unconditional release, and protests at the May 13 Union Square demonstration. The report does not establish the exact physical prison readmission day.
The Daily Worker of May 14, 1934, page 1, reports that Leon Blum arrived in New York the previous day after release from Great Meadow Prison in Comstock, New York, and was greeted by Laundry Workers Industrial Union representatives at Grand Central Station. It calls his release conditional and reports more than a year in state prison after spring 1933 revocation of parole connected with leadership of the Pretty Laundry strike. The editorial on page 6 corroborates the parole-revocation account. May 13 is an arrival date, not independently established as the exact prison-discharge day; the existing month-precision release remains unchanged.
In an open letter published by the Daily Worker of April 24, 1933, page 3, Blum described his 1932 assault prosecution and seven weeks in jail before the charge failed. He said laundry workers' and Trade Union Unity Council protests had then prevented his return to state prison. Regarding the Pretty Laundry strike, he reported being detained for alleged parole violation after the employers' association submitted strikebreaker affidavits; two of four witnesses, he said, admitted their affidavits were false. He also described questioning about his union's affiliation and his connection with the Communist Party. This is Blum's contemporary account, not a court finding; it does not establish a new exact custody date.
The May 10, 1932 Daily Worker reports that the Laundry Workers Industrial Union organizer remained jailed without bail on a felonious-assault accusation after the ten-week New Style Laundry strike at Sixteenth Street and Third Avenue in New York. The strike length is not his measured custody duration, and the report does not establish an exact arrest or physical release. This concerns his earlier laundry-assault prosecution, distinct from the 1933 parole-revocation imprisonment. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n111-NY-may-10-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
Letters from his wife Yetta and another correspondent in the October 3, 1933 Daily Worker describe his Pretty Laundry parole-revocation confinement at Great Meadow in Comstock and a prison work protest after a Black prisoner died in a ditch collapse. A correspondent calls the term fourteen months, differing from the separately documented one-year decision. The threatened nine years remaining on an older sentence were not established as service. His prison letter in the October 25 issue reports an ILD donation and an appeal for support; a planned Albany delegation supplies no release date. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v10-n237-oct-03-1933-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3 Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v10-n256-oct-25-1933-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
The March 14, 1932 Daily Worker reports that Blum and the union secretary printed Schribman came to court on March 11 during the New Style Laundry strike and were themselves arrested and kept without bail on felonious-assault accusations. Brother Stillman and five workers had been arrested March 10. The March 21 follow-up gives a combined $42,000 bail for eight strikers and three officials, without an individual bail allocation or proof of release. The source adds detail to the existing 1932 laundry prosecution; surname-only co-defendants are not given invented first names. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n062-NY-mar-14-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
The October 7, 1933 Daily Worker captions Blum’s portrait as the Laundry Workers Industrial Union leader then in Comstock, New York jail and a Communist candidate for Municipal Court Justice in the Bronx’s Second District. This supplies a dated physical-custody location observation in the existing 1933 prison/parole-revocation history, without guessing a formal facility name, exact transfer day or a continuous span from the earlier seven-week 1932 detention. His existing portrait is preserved, and the newly inspected face and caption crops remain in the audit. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v10-n241-oct-07-1933-DW-LOC.pdf#page=6
A July 17 Bronx ILD meeting notice identifies Blum as recently released from prison and scheduled to speak on political prisoners in the United States. This corroborates his return to public defense activity after the already recorded Great Meadow release, without a new exact discharge date. Daily Worker, July 17, 1934, page 3. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n170-jul-17-1934-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
Page 2 announces a Bronx laundry-workers’ protest and the report of a delegation to Governor Lehman seeking his release. It explicitly describes continued imprisonment through the Parole Commission amid the laundry strike. No successful parole, physical discharge or new completed term is established. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v10-n268-nov-08-1933-DW-LOC.pdf
Page 1 identifies the recently released laundry-strike leader Leon Blum as an announced speaker for the August 22 Herndon welcome. This corroborates his postrelease organizing; the future event date is not his discharge date. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n198-aug-18-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
The I.L.D. victory report describes a newly forced Parole Board rehearing and claims parole had been revoked because of laundry-strike leadership. It calls the remand Sing Sing for three years, differing from contemporary Great Meadow/one-year reports; preserve this institutional and nominal-term discrepancy without replacing the established chronology or inferring three actual years. Page10. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1933/v09n07-jul-1933-lab-def.pdf
The Daily Worker of May 14, 1934, page 1, reports that Leon Blum arrived in New York the previous day after release from Great Meadow Prison in Comstock, New York, and was greeted by Laundry Workers Industrial Union representatives at Grand Central Station. It calls his release conditional and reports more than a year in state prison after spring 1933 revocation of parole connected with leadership of the Pretty Laundry strike. The editorial on page 6 corroborates the parole-revocation account. May 13 is an arrival date, not independently established as the exact prison-discharge day; the existing month-precision release remains unchanged.
The February 21–25 defense-bazaar notice names the laundry-union prisoner alongside Gonshak and Weinstein. It is a support appeal, not proof of a new arrest or a release on the bazaar date.
Daily Worker, November 8, 1933; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, August 18, 1934; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The ILD letter says Blum remained in prison after six months of a one-year Parole Commission term connected with the laundry strike. Three habeas corpus writs and two commission hearings had not freed him; the letter calls for a campaign and petition delegation. Six months is an approximate ongoing elapsed interval, not a completed total or exact entry date.
